SLC Human Services & Public Safety Committee

Among states’ most pressing concerns are ensuring the public’s general welfare and protection, with both areas constituting increasing shares of state budgets. States have been taking the lead in health policy, welfare reform and child care, and have maintained their predominant role in the areas of public safety, corrections and sentencing. The Human Services & Public Safety Committee has a broad agenda which most typically addresses the challenges states face in the areas of human services and corrections, and policies and programs utilized to meet them. The Committee has undertaken assessments of Medicaid and reform; nursing shortages; long-term healthcare; and such corrections issues as criminal justice DNA statutes; the aging inmate population; female offenders; mental health parity in prisons, and prison staffing patterns in Southern states.

Recent Research

SLC Regional Resource |
May 8, 2018

At least 42,249 Americans died from opioid overdoses in
2016, a 28 percent increase from 2015, according to the
National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Opioids now
kill more Americans each year than guns, breast cancer or
automobile accidents and have contributed to the shortening
of the average U.S. life expectancy for two consecutive
years. The last recorded decrease in U.S. life expectancy
was in 1993, due to the AIDS epidemic. The last time life
expectancy decreased in two consecutive years was in 1962
and 1963 due to an influenza outbreak.

As of early April 2018, approximately 115,000 Americans
were listed on the national organ transplant registry waiting
on a lifesaving organ transplant, with a new person added to
the list every 10 minutes.
Despite advancements in technology
and surgical techniques, a large gap remains between the
number of organs needed and the supply of donated organs.
While 95 percent of U.S. adults support organ donation, only
54 percent have enrolled to be organ donors. Every day, an average of 95 organ transplants are performed in the United
States, and an average of 20 Americans die daily waiting for
a transplant. Contributing to this tragic scenario is the fact
that only three in 1,000 deaths in the United States occur
in a manner conducive to organ donation.

This SLC
Regional Resource raises policy considerations and highlights
the connections between the ongoing opioid crisis and the
national shortage of organs for transplantation. Additionally,
an examination of the history and process of organ donation
and transplants is provided, as well as actions taken by the
federal government and state governments to facilitate and
promote organ donation. A discussion of how the national
opioid crisis, critical to this discussion, is affecting organ
transplant rates is included.

Policy Analysis |
June 22, 2017

Lawmakers in several SLC member states have enacted legislation aimed at reducing correctional populations and curtailing costs by addressing bail and pretrial options. According to the Vera Institute of Justice, 62 percent of people in jail are not serving sentences but, rather, waiting for their cases to be heard. While there are limited examples of extensive bail reform in SLC states, other pretrial options, such as court notification systems, supervision services, and other community-based programs, have been implemented. State lawmakers also have sought to increase felony theft thresholds: the monetary value that prosecutors use to categorize stolen money or property as a felony. Multiple SLC states have enacted legislation detailing methods for collecting fines and fees from indigent defendants, for example, through individualized payment plans, reduced and/or deferred fines, or community service in lieu of owed payments. The information below reflects the trends in policies relating to bail reform and pretrial processes in SLC states.

SLC Regional Resource |
April 1, 2017

In recent years, several high-profile, law enforcement officer-involved shootings have thrust body-worn cameras (BWCs), or the lack thereof, into the spotlight. Proponents of BWCs maintain that they increase law enforcement transparency and improve relations between law enforcement and citizens. In contrast, BWC opponents argue that the cameras give an incomplete picture of incidents and add another cost to operating budgets which, in many law enforcement agencies (LEAs), already are stretched thin.

Due to the recent emergence of BWCs and their rapidly developing technology, LEAs and governments still are developing policies and statutes to regulate their use. This SLC Regional Resource examines the history of and predecessors to BWCs; policy issues associated with them, including considerations for implementation such as data storage, staffing and privacy; and existing laws and policies that regulate their use in the 15 SLC member states.

The Southern Legislative Conference (SLC) of The Council of State Governments was established in 1947 and comprises presiding officers and key legislators from 15 Southern states. The SLC is a non-partisan organization located in Atlanta, Georgia.